


Up Around the Bend

by Goodluckdetective (scorpiontales)



Series: Charlie Verse! [17]
Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:53:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6576544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiontales/pseuds/Goodluckdetective
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Things that never happened in the Charlie verse but could have, if things had gone differently. </p><p>Read chapter summary for each fic summary and warnings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Have You Ever Seen the Rain

**Author's Note:**

> All of these collected stories aren't canon. 
> 
> This chapter: 
> 
> After Simmons dies from his wire shortage, Lauren is left adrift with the promise of a phone call from the only parent she has left.
> 
> Five days pass.
> 
> Grif does not call.
> 
> Warnings: PTSD, character death, emotional neglect.

Her name is Lauren Simmons Grif and she comes home to find her father dead.

Later, when she has the courage to think about this moment, she remembers how normal the day was, all things considered. The weather wasn’t nice, but it wasn’t a special brand of terrible. Charlie was at school like normal, and she brought the oreos Lauren liked as she did every Tuesday. Classes were boring. There was little to report besides Captain Finch getting caught stealing french toast sticks from the cafeteria for the third time in a row. It was, for all respects, normal.

When she heads home from school, it isn’t with a skip to her step. There’s too much homework for that and when she drops Charlie off at her house, Lauren wishes she could hang out with her friend instead of doing Algebra. Walking to her own house takes only two blocks, and when she finds the front door locked, she thinks nothing when no one comes to answer. Grif has been at his publisher as of late, arguing against some edits they want to make to his latest novel. And Simmons, well, he likes to grade students papers to the worst music Lauren has ever heard.

Simmons swears it’s country. Lauren is certain her Dad has no hearing. It is a stalemate not even Grif will get involved in.

Lauren reaches for her keys, turning them in the lock. The living room is empty when she enters and she throws her backpack on the couch. The reminder for her to take off her shoes is noticed for once and as she slips out of her tennis shoes she hollers into the kitchen.     

“Dad,” she yells, making sure to tune her pitch so Simmons can hear her over the sound of his headphones. “What’s for dinner?” She hopes it’s fish. Fish sounds amazing.

There’s no reply and she sighs, walking towards the kitchen. The stove isn’t even on and she wonders if Simmons lost track of time again. Not that she minds; when either of her Dads loses track of time for dinner, that means delicious, delicious, takeout. “Dad, are you-”

She stops. There’s a stack of papers on the table, but they’re only halfway graded. Simmons laptop which he uses to input grades is still wide open, something he never does since Lauren changed his background to her and Charlie making stupid facial expressions. His cup of coffee, always fully gone by this hour, is still almost full.

Lauren looks to the floor and realizes why. Because right there on the tile, still and pale, face forward, is Simmons.

“Dad!” She runs forward, her knees crashing into the tile as she kneels next to Simmons. It takes effort to roll him on his front,  cybernetics aren’t light, but she does it anyway. Part of her, the part that listens to Aunt Emily talk about basic first aid knows the cold skin is a bad sign, but she ignores it and feels for a pulse anyway. When she finds none, she lifts up the metal eyelid on Simmons’ robotic eye. The red light is out entirely.

“Dad!” She shakes him, trying to get a breath, anything. When nothing happens, she reaches for her phone to call someone, hitting one of the many buttons on her speed dial. The phone rings once before someone picks up.

“Lauren.” Uncle Wash. “What’s going on?”

Lauren doesn’t remember saying anything, but she supposes her sob is enough to get her point across, because by the time she realizes she should do something other than cry, Uncle Wash is breaking down their kitchen door.

“What-” Wash cuts off as he takes in the scene and Lauren finds herself being pulled back as Wash looks to check for a pulse himself, a sign of life. After a second he turns to Lauren with this lost empty look Lauren remembers seeing from soldiers and service workers, and no, not fucking again-

“Lauren-”

“No! He’s not! He’s not!”

Part of her is aware that she’s talking like a four year old, but she doesn’t care. Uncle Wash grabs her in for a hug even as she pounds at his chest and rages against the world. Even when the E.M.T’s come and take Simmons away, he stays with her.

Lauren knows why. No reason for him to go with Simmons. He’s dead. She’s the one left who needs protecting.

She hates being the one left.

Uncle Wash takes her to his and Uncle Tucker’s house that night. Uncle Tucker is at the hospital, but Charlie comes over to wrap Lauren in the tightest hug of her life. When Uncle Tucker gets back from the hospital with puffy eyes, Lauren dares to ask a question she hasn’t been able to bring up for hours.

“Where’s Dad?” Tucker’s face falls. “The other one.”

Tucker looks at her and rubs his hand down his face. “He’s….he’s a bit of a wreck. Donut’s helping.” He looks back at her. “He’ll call you tonight. He just has to get everything…in order.”

In order. Like this is a small affair, not her world crashing down. Lauren just nods as Charlie hugs her tighter and puts her phone ringtone on blast when she goes to bed.

A night passes. Grif does not call.  

* * *

The next day she gets all the way to brushing her teeth until she remembers her Dad is dead.

Charlie finds her crying in the bathroom. It’s not a good way to start a morning.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Lauren curls up on the bathroom floor, terribly aware that Junior once occupied and polluted this space.  Charlie sits next to her, likely getting just as infected from Junior owned tile, and for once, she doesn’t comment on the excessive swearing. “Shit, fuck, shit, there’s school today-”

“Uncle Wash already called you out,” Charlie says in English for once. Probably trying to make Lauren’s life easier. Lauren doesn’t really know how to feel about that.

“I can’t miss,” she grumbles, threading her hands through her hair and tugging. Charlie is quick to untangle her fingers before she ends up pulling strands out of her scalp. “I can’t miss, Charlie, everyone will know, and I’ll be the fragile kid again-” Charlie’s silence cuts her short and when she looks at the alien she feels like hiding somewhere dark where no one will find her. “They already know.”

Charlie nods and Lauren feels terrible for even hoping otherwise. Her Dad was a war hero. Of course everyone knows. They deserve to know. And Lauren wanted them all in the dark to stay normal for one more day.

“There is nothing wrong with being hurt,” Charlie says, rubbing her back. Lauren doesn’t answer. Charlie is just trying to help. But she can’t understand on this one.

There is nothing wrong with being hurt. But there is everything wrong with being pitied.

Lauren walks downstairs to find her Uncles turn off the television at once and wishes she never left Junior’s room.

The day passes slowly. Lauren spends it in a mix of crying on Charlie, watching television, crying on Uncle Tucker, eating what little she can stomach, and crying on Uncle Wash. By the end of the day she’s sure her eyes are red enough to make her look ill, and even when Uncle Wash offers to make fish, her stomach turns. When the door opens to show Sarge and Aunt Grey there, Lauren almost bowls them both over with another round of crying.

“Hey Squirt,” Sarge says and he sounds terrible too, which makes Lauren feel better about using everyone as a human tissue. When she manages to stop crying and looks up at Sarge, the black eye he’s sporting is enough to make her gasp. It’s a hell of a shiner, dark purple and black blossoming across his nose and almost to his brow.

“Got into a fight with a Doc,” Sarge says and when he smiles, Lauren notices he’s missing teeth. “Told me I wasn’t 28.”

Lauren wants to believe him, she wants to believe him more than anything, but his grin is strained and there’s a twitch to his other eye that tells her this was no fight about a doctor. That and all the doctors at the hospital besides Aunt Grey are wusses (Sarge told her so). She lifts her chin.

“Where’s Dad. The other one?”

Sarge’s slouching shoulders tell her everything she needs to know. He’s not here. Like he wasn’t there last night. Because he was punching Sarge’s face in.

“He’s busy with arrangements,” Doctor Grey says, voice chipper. How she manages it is  a mystery. “He’ll call tonight.”

They end up sitting around for dinner and when the hour gets later, Sarge and Aunt Grey stay the night in the basement. Lauren leaves her phone on again, ringer on high.

Grif does not call.

* * *

The next day she wakes up and Uncle Lopez, Doc, Uncle Donut, Aunt Kai and Uncle Caboose are in the kitchen.

Lauren doesn’t cry on them. She feels like she’s out of tears. It should be alarming, but instead she’s rather thankful. She’s gotten tired of crying.

Lopez and her talk in Spanish, her complaining about her shitty life and Lopez not complaining about his for once. Aunt Kai offers to braid her hair and when Lauren suggests dyeing it instead, Donut is the first out of the house to grab the supplies for the job. They end up adding a red twirl to one of her curls, and Sarge manages to give her a grin that looks authentic even with his likely broken nose.

“Repping team pride, Squirt. Good on you!”

Uncle Caboose brings his dog and it’s a comfort, if a minor one. Freckles does give the best hugs and by the end of the morning, Lauren is covered in dog hair and as content as she can get in times like this. She scratches behind Freckles ear and hums a little as she does so, one of the songs Simmons used to sing when he thought she wasn’t listening.

“I know that song,” Uncle Donut says, perking up when he hears her begin to him the second verse. “Simmons used to hum that all around the base. It’s one of his-” He cuts off, looking awkward. Lauren can see his surprise when she tilts her head to look him dead in the eye.

“Tell me.”

He does. He tells her about Simmons love of CCR, how he tried to learn how to play a banjo once, how he realized very fast that it wasn’t happening. Aunt Kai ends up joining in after the story is done, telling Lauren that Simmons tried to learn one of Grif’s favorites for their wedding, and Lauren is shocked she hadn’t noticed his hours of practicing only two years ago. The other family members around the house join in soon enough, Caboose talking about a time Simmons went Blue (it didn’t last) and Sarge chiming in with a very eccentric story that involved a very large wall.

“When I was seven,” Lauren says, twiddling her thumbs. “He tried to teach me how to make a robot.” A smile spreads across her face despite her trying to keep it down. “It blew up. Dad, Grif,” she adds for distinction since she has always called both Grif and Simmons by the same name unless they’re in the same room. “Said we almost gave him grey hairs.”

“Please,” Aunt Kai says. “He had grey hairs at 16. Screamed so loud I thought a rooster got in the house.”

No one asks Aunt Kai why she assumed rooster as the obvious subject. No one really wants to know.

Charlie leaves in the afternoon, heading to see her Dad. When Charlie mentions it, obviously feeling guilty about having to leave, Lauren notices her visibly relax when she says it’s fine. She can understand Charlie’s tension. After what happened to Lauren, she must be worrying something fierce when it comes to what-ifs.

Lauren lets herself fall into the what-if herself. What if Locus had died instead? What if the war criminal had died instead of the war hero? The world would have been better.

Lauren thinks this and instantly hates herself for thinking something so terrible upon her own best friend.

When Charlie comes back, she’s more relaxed and Lauren is positive she’s cried. The rest of the family is staying the night (something Tucker is complaining about vocally) and the alien walks up to her and looks around.

“Has he-”

Lauren knows the question. It’s the only question on her mind that can be answered at the moment. “No.”

Charlie’s mandibles twist, something Lauren has only seen her do when she is truly angry. Like when Pat told Lauren she was ugly 5th year. “He should be here.”

“You’re telling me.” Lauren pulls her phone out of her pocket. There’s a few messages from the kids at school, but nothing from the one person she wants to hear from. She tucks her phone in her pocket again and this time, when she goes to bed, she leaves the ringer off.

It doesn’t matter. Grif does not call anyway.

* * *

The fourth day, Aunt Carolina walks in, takes one look at Lauren and says two words.

“That jackass.”

Lauren isn’t really perturbed by the outburst. She just looks at Aunt Carolina. “Are you going to tell me he’ll call tonight too? Because I’d prefer a more creative lie.”

The entire room is silent. Lauren doesn’t care. She’s a Grif; she can be cruel if she wants.

Hasn’t stopped Grif.

Carolina does not stay the night. Actually she doesn’t stay and hour, grabbing her court and stomping over to what Lauren thinks is her own house. She wonders if Grif is even there; if he has any sense, he’d avoid the place.

That night, Lauren spends her time tinkering with robotics, fiddling with wires to get a toy solider to walk across a table. It takes five tries for him to take a step and when he does he starts to smoke so fierce the entire house has to be evacuated because of the smoke alarms. Lauren is the first out, wearing a pair of oversized pj’s borrowed from Charlie, the half melted robot in her hand.

She leaves her phone inside. It’s been off since the morning. She does not turn it back on.

* * *

The fifth day Lauren wakes up and Grif is in her room.

He looks terrible she thinks, a black eye from what must be Aunt Carolina, a beard from what be days of not shaving. She’s torn between hugging him and running away for a second, and when he gets up to walk over to her, she decided to hold her ground instead.

“Cool, I’m dreaming. Awesome,” she says, and slides back under the covers. It’s childish. She really doesn’t care.

“Lauren-”

“Uncle Donut is taking me dress shopping for the funeral if that’s what you’re worried about,” she says, and the cruelty of the statement makes her feel a little better, in a twisted sort of way. “You can go tell Aunt Carolina we made nice and leave. I won’t tell her otherwise.”

There is a long beat of silence. Lauren curls up more into her covers and thinks he might take the out, and leave her alone. But then she feels someone sit down on the edge of the bed, and God she doesn’t want to do this, she wants to stay here and hide forever, because her life is too short to listen to a man who doesn’t want to even talk to her.

“I fucked up.”

Lauren snorts. “Did Aunt Carolina tell you that?”

“It was inferred with the right hook, but I sort of got the point early on. I’m not dumb. Just in denial.” There’s a long pause. “Are you okay?”

Lauren pulls herself out of her covers to glare at him something fierce. “My Dad is dead and my other Dad hates me,” Lauren hisses. “So no, I’m not.”

Grif looks like Lauren hit him harder than Carolina could ever dare. “I don’t-”

“Yes, you do!” And there goes the tidal wave of what has been eating her up for almost a week, what has been festering there so deep that it’s become something toxic, something more poisonous than cyanide. “You do because you didn’t call, you didn’t even let me know you were alright, and people only do that when they hate you, when they really hate you, when they blame you for something, because everything is your fault, Armonia blowing up is your fault, you town dying because you wanted to look at rocks is your fault and _your dad dying is your fault because everything you ever get to keep for more than a second has to go somewhere because you’re cursed and can’t keep anything no matter how hard you try!_ ” She’s breathing heavy and tears are running down her face and the looks Grif is giving her is too much so she hides under the covers again where no one can blame her for things but herself.

“Lauren-”

“Go away.”

“Lauren, kid, please-”

“I said go away.”

“Lauren, I-”

“Go away before you end up dying too.”

Grif does not go away but he doesn’t speak either. Instead Lauren can feel him shift in his place, like he’s bending. Whisper to himself in a broken voice that sounds more guilt ridden than Lauren thought possible.

“ _Jesus_.”

Two hours pass.

Grif does not talk.

He also does not leave.

* * *

Her name is Lauren Simmons Grif and she has lost more than enough.

The world seems to delight in taking even more.

Grif realizes that after this, he may never be able to convince her otherwise.

“I fucked up, Dick,” he says to the empty air outside Tucker’s house while Lauren sleeps inside, still refusing to talk to him. “I fucked up bad.”

The wind seems to whistle CCR in the near silence.


	2. Up Around the Bend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompted anon: Simmons and Grif getting news that Lauren got too close to a story she was investigating. This is not official canon.
> 
> A night passes.
> 
> Lauren does not come home.

His name is Dexter Grif and his daughter comes back from her Sophomore year at college by breaking down the front door.

 “Sorry,” she says after the door is a lost cause, the hinges torn out of the wall. Grif and Simmons find her in the kitchen, eating some leftover pasta from the fridge. Her hair is shorter, cropped to almost her ears. “I left my keys in my dorm. Would have gotten a spare from Sarge but the door looked kind of shoddy anyway, so I figured breaking it down would convince you two to finally get new locks.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a slip of paper. “Already wrote you the check.”

It says something about their lives, Grif thinks, that Simmons just takes the check, pockets it, and goes off to place a call with the nearest hardware store.

“Where’d you get the cash,” Grif says, after the customary hug, deciding he can be angry about the door when it stops getting kicked down more than once a week (Sarge doesn’t understand doorknobs). They’re all seated at the kitchen table now,  a three chaired thing painted a color red that is likely illegal in five states. Lauren pushes what little pasta is left towards Grif. He shakes his head, she reaches back to put it on the counter.

Grif can remember when she wasn’t tall enough to even reach the top of that counter. Back when she was four and insisted on having her hair in pigtails everyday because it was “pretty and convenient.” She’s not that small girl anymore, twenty years old, tall and tough as nails, but she still has the curly black-brown hair , wide cheeks, and freckles that reminds him of the little girl. “I got a job in the city for the summer. Internship for the big press company there?”

“News or Feds News?” Simmons asks. He keeps an eye on the papers for some reason. Not that Grif doesn’t; he just hates both. Biased news is the worst. Grif would much rather have his papers tell him that everyone sucks equally.

“Chorus Daily actually. It’s independent. Didn’t want to get involved with the big guys trying to rip apart every political figures sex life.” Lauren pauses and frowns. “Plus, I don’t think I could look Uncle Bitters in the eye after that.”

Grif isn’t sure what kills him more; that Lauren insists on calling Bitters an Uncle or that Bitters is a fucking senator. Both seem wrong.

“It shouldn’t be too much money; check I gave you was from my school job. They’re paying me almost nothing, but if I get them readers, they said they’ll up it. And I’m gonna get them more readers.” There’s a glint to her eye that Grif recognizes and Simmons must too, because he groans and plants his face right into the table.

“Leave the Senate alone, Lauren.”

Lauren lifts her chin.“Who said anything about the Senate?” There’s a pause as she smirks. “They’re small fry. I’m going after the corporations.”

Grif just reaches out to give her a high five. That’s his girl. Going after the man.

Later that night, Simmons frets, as Simmons does when Lauren decides to take on anything twice her size with sharp teeth. Almost paces a hole into the carpets Grif got replaced a few years back. It can’t be good for the carpet. Or Simmons wires.

 “She’ll be fine,” Grif says, leaning back onto the side of the bed with a nice him-shaped dent in it. “Kid is smart.”

Simmons glares at him. Either Grif has become more susceptible to it over the years, or Simmons has finally perfected it, because it almost makes Grif want to hide. Almost.  “Smart doesn’t always win, Grif.”

“Yeah but smart and lucky does. And that kid is damn lucky. It’s in her genes.”

Simmons sighs. “She doesn’t have our genes, Grif.”

Grif just waves him off.

Here’s the truth of the matter, Grif thinks when Simmons is passed out and Grif is suffering from insomnia once again. He doesn’t think Lauren is immune to danger. He knows the stakes. He knows luck and smarts aren’t the perfect cure to avoiding pain.

But Lauren is his kid. His stupid, smart, _good_ , kid. And thus, the laws of the universe are gonna have to fucking change because Grif isn’t gonna stand for them to let her get hurt just because of Murphy’s law.

It’s not the best cure to worry. But it’s enough to get him to sleep at night.

* * *

This is how the first month of the summer goes.

Lauren goes to work. She publishes stories about regular news, breaks a few about a scandal or two, nothing big. She comes home on the train from New Armonia every night (except the week Charlie is home on shore leave) and they eat dinner, talking about their lives. Grif writes. Simmons grades papers. Lauren complains about the stories that escape her grasp and goes over to bother Sarge or Donut when she’s stuck on an idea. Live goes on. Things are normal.Then one night, Lauren doesn’t come home.

Grif doesn’t panic at first, because panic is for overbearing father’s who can’t understand that their kids grow up and have lives. He calls the paper. Checks in the their family if she’s visiting. Simmons runs up to the city to make sure she didn’t get herself arrested over something stupid.

Night hits. Simmons comes home with two policeman behind him. Grif feels like the heart Simmons gave him years ago is about to give up ghost.

 “We can’t find her,” Simmons says, a little lost, and Grif can breathe just a little, because it’s not what he thought they were here to tell him.

That doesn’t make what he’s just heard any better.

* * *

A day passes. Lauren doesn’t come home.

Another day passes. Lauren doesn’t come home.

Another day passes and-

Grif is vomiting into the toilet from a nightmare.

Simmons is sitting on the edge of the bathtub next to him, his fingers in Grif’s hair, and that tells Grif that they’re in deep shit this time, because usually it’s the other way around when it comes to this panic shit. He can feel Simmons other hand on his back, but instead of a solid weight, it shakes, just enough for Grif to notice.

Grif isn’t really focused on that though. Back when he thought Kai was dead, a lifetime ago, he used to have dreams about her, in that canyon. Dead in every way he could imagine. Bullet through the eyes. Drowned. In pieces from an explosion. Even after she showed back up at his doorstep, they’d taken forever to dispel entirely. It’s been years since he’s had one even remotely similar.

Until tonight when he dreamed looking down into a lake and watching Lauren’s dead eyes staring back up at him.

“She’s going to be okay,” Simmons says when the heaving has stopped. “They’re going to find her. They have Carolina and Wash on the job and everything.” They have Grif and Simmons too, and this is the first night in three days that they’ve actually spent at home. “They’ll find her.”

Grif presses his forehead to the unforgiving porcelain and prays to a God he has never believed in that Simmons is not lying.

* * *

They find her in the office of the police station with a broken arm, a harsh burn on her left leg, a handful of bruises and a gash on her other arm that will absolutely need stitches.

Well, find her isn’t the right word. She more broke herself out of some hellhole and found them.

Grif and Simmons go straight to the hospital when they hear the news. Lauren is already in her own room, the broken arm is already in a cast and the other one is stitched up. She looks terrible, sporting one hell of a black eye, but when she sees them, she waves anyway.

“Charlie called,” she says. “She’s furious. I think I’ll need to interplanetary ship flowers.”

Simmons sort of tackles her at that and well, Grif can’t blame him.

“Hey Dad,” Lauren says, using her soft voice when she’s stop caring about being seen as weak (and Grif hates that she cares so much in the first place). “I’m okay. Really. They didn’t even know how to tie a knot properly.” She looks over Simmons shoulder and shoots him a smile that has to hurt with her broken nose. “I got lost in the sewers.”

Grif doesn’t know what to say because the air is gone from his lungs, and the ground is shifting, and he’s lost so damn much in his life, but Lauren is still here, mostly intact. And she could have been gone, gone for good, gone leaving Grif with a headstone and an empty room and-

“ _Dad_.” Lauren sounds terrified and Grif realizes he’s crying.

He’s not good with emotions. He never has been. So he follows his gut. Walks up to his husband and daughter. Pulls them in the tightest hug he can imagine. Ruffles Lauren’s hair.

“Don’t do that again,” Grif says.

Lauren’s left arm tangles around his waist.

“I’m sorry, Dad.”

It’s not a promise. But Grif will take it.


End file.
